Tag: History

Trip Reflections from the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates creates quite an impression. The country is anchored in a rich and long history that stretches from pre-history to ancient desert trade routes to coastal pearl-diving villages, yet it’s moving at a pace that makes western ambition seem tired. It feels decades ahead of the United States. Dubai’s kinetic and surreal skyline is a striking contrast with the historic old town. Abu Dhabi has a kind of cultural gravity and an incredible mosque. The quiet vastness of the Sharjah desert…I love the desert. The visuals were literally awesome and the people were warm, welcoming, and high-integrity.

I was there last July and I’ve been meaning to write about it. It was in the 90s F and humid. I still managed a 3-4 mile jog every morning. It was the equivalent of a Florida Summer, but it was unusually cool for that time of year.

Zafer Younis


As always, some brief history—because I love it. Human settlement on the Arabian Peninsula dates back over 100,000 years, with archaeological sites in the UAE showing early stone-tool industries, Bronze Age metallurgy, and extensive pre-Islamic trade networks linking Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Indus Valley. Coastal communities relied on fishing and pearl diving for centuries, while inland tribes moved with the seasons across desert oases. By the 16th century, European and regional powers competed for influence along the Gulf’s strategic maritime corridor, but the interior remained defined by tribal alliances, trade, and pilgrimage routes that shaped the region’s cultural continuity well into the modern era.

Some more interesting facts :

  1. The UAE hosts one of the world’s oldest known pearling cultures; divers once descended 20-30 meters on a single breath, and many coastal towns still map to historic pearling fleets.
  2. The traditional wind tower (barjeel) is an indigenous form of natural air-conditioning; entire neighborhoods in old Dubai were engineered around passive cooling centuries before electricity.
  3. The Arabian oryx—once extinct in the wild—was reintroduced through UAE-led conservation and is now one of the world’s most successful large-mammal recovery efforts.
  4. Sharjah’s Mleiha archaeological zone contains a 130,000-year human migration trail, one of the oldest documented routes of Homo sapiens out of Africa.
  5. The date palm, a cultural and agricultural backbone of the Emirates, has supported food security for over 7,000 years; today the UAE maintains global gene banks to preserve lineage diversity.
  6. Dubai Creek is a natural inlet that enabled centuries of Indian Ocean trade; its shape and depth dictated the city’s earliest merchant settlements long before oil or skyscrapers.
  7. The Empty Quarter (Rub’ al Khali), which covers part of the UAE, contains dune systems that migrate up to 30 meters a year—an environment that shaped Bedouin navigation, camel-breeding, and oral poetry traditions.
  8. The falconry heritage is so integral that UAE falcons carry their own passports for international travel; it reflects a conservation tradition that brought the once-endangered saker falcon population back from collapse.

I was thrilled to experience this place firsthand. Awesome is the best word to describe it. I look forward to returning to explore more.

Avignon: A Brief, Photogenic History

Avignon sits on a limestone outcrop above the Rhône, a strategic perch that’s drawn humans since prehistoric settlements ringed the riverbanks. The Romans formalized it in the 1st century BCE as Avenio, a fortified trading post tied into the Via Agrippa road network. The bones of that layout still shape the old city’s narrow lanes—perfect for close-up architectural shots of stone textures and surviving Roman foundations.

Everything changed in the 14th century, when the papacy relocated from Rome to Avignon—first under Pope Clement V, then firmly established by John XXII. For nearly 70 years, Avignon was the administrative and spiritual capital of Western Christianity. This is the era that produced the massive Palais des Papes, Europe’s largest Gothic fortress-palace.

Across the river, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon emerged as the papacy’s defensive counterweight. When the popes settled in Avignon, they needed control of both banks of the Rhône to secure trade, movement, and military access. The French crown—keen to assert influence without directly challenging papal authority—established Villeneuve as a royal town. To anchor that power and guard the river crossing, the French built the formidable Fort Saint-André atop Mount Andaon.

The fort’s purpose was twofold. Militarily, it dominated the Rhône valley and kept a watchful eye on Avignon itself. Politically, it was a reminder that even while the papacy ruled the city, France controlled the high ground. Its massive walls and twin towers still photograph beautifully: clean sight lines, panoramic overlooks of the Palais des Papes, and vantage points that show how the Rhône once defined borders, loyalties, and strategies.

Taken together, Avignon and Villeneuve tell a single story—one city holding spiritual power, the other holding the heights—shaping a medieval landscape that still reads clearly through a modern lens.

Augergine

The Flood of Money in American Politics: How Legal Decisions Unleashed a Financial Arms Race

Ok, buckle up. I hope you read this all the way through. It’s long, but it’s worth it.

Regardless of whether you lean left or right, there’s one problem that transcends party lines: the massive influence of money in American politics. This isn’t about Republican donors versus Democratic donors—it’s about a system that has evolved to give outsized influence to anyone with deep pockets, regardless of their political affiliation.

The numbers tell a story that should concern every American who believes in representative democracy. We’ve gone from roughly $100 million in total federal election spending in 1976 to $14.4 billion in 2020. That’s a 140-fold increase—far outpacing inflation, population growth, or any reasonable measure of democratic need. This explosion in political spending has fundamentally altered how our democracy operates, shifting influence from ordinary citizens to a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations who can spend unlimited amounts while often hiding their identities through “dark money” channels.

But here’s the connection that should alarm every taxpayer: big money drives big spending. When corporations and special interests can invest millions in political influence to secure billions in government contracts and subsidies, the result is predictable—a federal government that has blown through $34 trillion in debt while average citizens get stuck with the bill. This isn’t just democratic capture; it’s economic grift on a massive scale.

This transformation didn’t happen naturally. It’s the direct result of specific Supreme Court decisions over the past 50 years that systematically dismantled campaign finance restrictions—decisions that have created exactly the kind of system our Founders warned against when they spoke about the dangers of concentrated wealth corrupting republican government.

There are moments in legal history that fundamentally alter how power operates in America. The campaign finance cases represent one such inflection point. Working in technology, I’ve seen how systems can be captured by concentrated interests when proper safeguards don’t exist. That’s exactly what’s happened to our political system—and it affects every American’s ability to have their voice heard, regardless of their political beliefs.

The Architecture of Corruption: How Courts Built the Money Machine

Buckley v. Valeo (1976): The Original Design Flaw

The transformation began with Buckley v. Valeo, where the Supreme Court first established that spending money on politics constitutes protected speech under the First Amendment. The Court’s reasoning seemed logical: since virtually all political communication requires money—from printing flyers to buying TV ads—limiting spending necessarily limits speech.

But here’s where they made a fatal architectural decision. The Court ruled that contribution limits (money given directly to candidates) were constitutional because they posed only a minor restriction on speech while serving the compelling government interest of preventing corruption. However, expenditure limits (money spent independently) were unconstitutional because they directly restricted the “quantity of expression.”

This created a massive loophole. While you could only give $1,000 directly to a candidate, you could spend unlimited amounts “independently” to support them. The Court naively assumed this independent spending couldn’t create the same corruption risks as direct contributions—an assumption that has proven catastrophically wrong.

What strikes me about Buckley is how the Court optimized for an abstract principle (unlimited speech) while ignoring the systemic vulnerabilities this created. Justice White’s prescient dissent warned that “unlimited expenditures constitute a mortal danger” to democracy, but the majority was convinced that transparency would prevent corruption. They were wrong on both counts.

Why they were wrong on transparency: The Court assumed unlimited independent spending would be fully disclosed, allowing voters to evaluate the source of political messages. Instead, we got the explosion of “dark money”—spending where the true source is completely hidden through networks of nonprofits and shell organizations. By 2020, over $1 billion in completely untraceable money influenced federal elections.

Why they were wrong on preventing corruption: Even where disclosure exists, research shows it doesn’t prevent the corrupting influence of massive spending. Voters often don’t see or remember disclosure information, and when they do, most don’t understand what organizations like “Americans for Prosperity” actually represent. Meanwhile, the sheer volume of unlimited spending drowns out other voices regardless of transparency.

McCain-Feingold (2002): Temporary Patch Management

Recognizing the growing influence of money, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002. This law attempted to close several critical vulnerabilities: it banned “soft money” (unlimited donations to political parties), restricted “electioneering communications” (corporate and union-funded TV ads mentioning candidates), and increased direct contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000 per candidate per election.

For a brief moment, it seemed like reformers had gained ground. The Supreme Court initially upheld most of McCain-Feingold in McConnell v. FEC (2003), recognizing Congress’s authority to prevent corruption.

But this was just temporary patch management. Corporate interests and wealthy donors immediately began developing new strategies to circumvent the restrictions, setting the stage for an even more systematic assault on campaign finance law.

How they set the stage for the assault: McCain-Feingold’s soft money ban pushed wealthy donors and corporations toward three new strategies that would prove far more destructive. First, they began heavily funding 527 organizations—tax-exempt groups that could raise unlimited funds as long as they didn’t expressly advocate for specific candidates. Second, they started building networks of 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations that could spend on politics without disclosing donors. Third, they began developing legal theories to challenge campaign finance restrictions entirely, funding test cases through organizations like the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics. This legal infrastructure would prove crucial when Citizens United reached the Supreme Court.

Citizens United (2010): Complete System Compromise

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission represents the most destructive Supreme Court decision for American democracy in modern history. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court didn’t just modify existing law—it took a sledgehammer to the entire campaign finance system.

What Citizens United accomplished:

  1. Overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), which had allowed states to restrict corporate political expenditures
  2. Struck down the “electioneering communications” provision of McCain-Feingold, allowing unlimited corporate and union spending on political ads
  3. Created the legal foundation for Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as they don’t “coordinate” with campaigns
  4. Opened the door to massive “dark money” spending through nonprofits that don’t disclose donors

The Court’s reasoning centered on two assumptions: that independent expenditures couldn’t corrupt candidates because there was no direct coordination, and that transparency would allow voters to evaluate the source of political messages. Both assumptions have proven false.

Evidence the coordination assumption failed: Despite legal prohibitions on “coordination,” research by the Campaign Legal Center and other watchdog groups has documented extensive coordination between Super PACs and campaigns. Common tactics include: shared consultants who work for both campaigns and Super PACs, detailed public communications that provide strategic guidance without direct contact, and former campaign staff immediately joining “independent” Super PACs. The FEC, split 3-3 between parties, has proven unable or unwilling to enforce coordination restrictions meaningfully.

Evidence the transparency assumption failed: Justice Kennedy explicitly stated that Citizens United would increase transparency, not decrease it. Instead, dark money exploded from $139 million in 2010 to over $1 billion in 2020. Donors now routinely hide their identities through networks of nonprofits, shell companies, and pass-through organizations. Even Kennedy himself admitted in 2015 that the disclosure system “is not working the way it should”—a remarkable admission from the decision’s author.

The Cascade Effect: Subsequent System Failures

Citizens United wasn’t the end—it triggered a cascade of decisions that further compromised the system:

  • SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010): Federal appeals court created Super PACs by ruling that if corporations can spend unlimited amounts independently, then committees that only make independent expenditures can accept unlimited contributions
  • McCutcheon v. FEC (2014): Supreme Court struck down aggregate contribution limits, allowing individuals to give the maximum amount to unlimited numbers of candidates and committees
  • FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022): Supreme Court struck down limits on candidates using post-election contributions to repay personal loans to their campaigns

Each decision further entrenched the principle that money equals speech and that virtually any limit on political spending violates the First Amendment.

Money equals speech. With the wealth concentrating among the few, what does this say about the individual’s right to speech? Does having a right to speech matter if you can’t possibly be heard over the billions of dollars being spent by the wealthiest 0.1%, the wealthiest companies, and special interest groups?

The Data: Quantifying the System Compromise

Let me walk you through the numbers, because they tell the story more clearly than any legal theory.

Total Federal Election Spending Explosion

The statistical evidence is overwhelming:

  • 1976: ~$100 million (first year with modern disclosure requirements)
  • 1990: $659 million
  • 2000: $1.2 billion
  • 2010: $4.0 billion (first election after Citizens United)
  • 2016: $6.5 billion
  • 2020: $14.4 billion
  • 2024: Projected $15+ billion

That’s a 140-fold increase in less than 50 years. Even accounting for inflation, this represents roughly a 30-fold increase in real purchasing power.

Individual Race Cost Inflation

The explosion becomes even more stark when you examine individual campaigns:

Average House Race (Winners):

  • 1990: $408,000 ($980,000 in 2024 dollars)
  • 2022: $2.79 million (actual 2024 dollars)
  • Real increase: 285%

Average Senate Race (Winners):

  • 1990: $3.87 million ($9.31 million in 2024 dollars)
  • 2022: $26.53 million (actual 2024 dollars)
  • Real increase: 285%

These aren’t outliers—they represent the new baseline for competitive federal races.

Outside Spending: The Independent Expenditure Problem

Perhaps most concerning is the explosion in “outside spending”—money spent by groups supposedly independent of candidates:

  • 2004: $139 million (first major surge)
  • 2010: $309 million (Citizens United impact)
  • 2012: $1.04 billion
  • 2020: $3.3 billion
  • 2024: $4.5 billion (new record)

Outside spending has grown 32-fold since 2004, far outpacing traditional candidate fundraising. This represents a fundamental architectural shift—from campaigns controlled by candidates to campaigns influenced by independent actors with unlimited resources.

Dark Money: The Untraceable Influence Vector

“Dark money”—political spending where the original source is hidden—has become a dominant attack vector:

  • 2008: $102 million
  • 2010: $139 million (post-Citizens United)
  • 2020: Over $1 billion
  • 2024: Estimated $1.2+ billion

Nearly $1 billion in untraceable money influenced the 2020 election—more than the total federal election spending in 2000.

Billionaire Concentration

The concentration of political influence among the ultra-wealthy has reached unprecedented levels:

  • 2022 midterms: Just 21 billionaire families contributed $783 million
  • Billionaire share: 15% of all federal election financing
  • Single largest donor: Elon Musk contributed $277 million in 2024

These 21 families alone outspent the millions of small donors giving to House and Senate candidates.

The Research: Documented System Impact

The academic research on money’s influence presents a clear picture, though some contrarian voices argue the effects are overstated.

Legislative Responsiveness Studies

Multiple studies demonstrate that legislators are significantly more responsive to wealthy donors than to average constituents. Princeton’s Martin Gilens and Northwestern’s Benjamin Page found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Access and Time Allocation Research

Research consistently shows that large donors receive significantly more access to elected officials. Studies of congressional schedules found that members spend 30-70% of their time fundraising rather than governing, with the vast majority spent with wealthy donors.

Electoral Competition Impact

The need for money filters out candidates without access to wealthy networks. This particularly impacts candidates with populist economic views, as they can’t appeal to the business community that provides the bulk of large donations.

Polarization Dynamics

The role of ideological donors in low-turnout primaries has contributed to political polarization. Candidates must appeal to activist donors with extreme views to fund primary campaigns, pulling both parties away from the center.

Public Perception Data

The polling data shows widespread public concern:

  • 85% say campaign costs make it hard for good people to run for office
  • 84% say special interest groups have too much influence
  • 80% say campaign donors have too much influence on Congress
  • 72% support limits on campaign spending

Contrarian Research

Some scholars, notably David Primo and Jeffrey Milyo, argue that money’s influence is overstated. Their research suggests money doesn’t buy elections (wealthy candidates like Michael Bloomberg often lose), corruption remains rare, and public cynicism may be exaggerated.

However, these findings focus on the most obvious forms of corruption while ignoring subtler forms of influence like agenda-setting, access, and policy framing.

Real-World Implementation: Policy Impact Analysis

The abstract numbers become concrete when you examine specific policy areas where donor influence is most apparent.

Tax Policy Correlation

Research consistently shows that tax policy correlates more closely with the preferences of high-income donors than with public opinion. Despite majority support for higher taxes on the wealthy, Congress has repeatedly cut top marginal rates and capital gains taxes—policies that directly benefit large political donors.

Financial Sector Influence

The financial industry’s massive political spending helped prevent meaningful reforms even after the 2008 financial crisis. Banks and investment firms spent over $2.3 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2009-2019, helping water down Dodd-Frank regulations.

Healthcare Industry Impact

The health insurance and pharmaceutical industries’ political spending has helped block Medicare-for-All proposals despite majority public support. These industries spent over $4.7 billion on political activities from 2009-2020.

Climate Policy Obstruction

Fossil fuel industry political spending has significantly delayed climate action. Oil, gas, and coal companies have spent over $2 billion on political activities since 2000, helping prevent carbon pricing and renewable energy investments that polling shows most Americans support.

International Benchmarking: Alternative Architectures

The United States is an extreme outlier among democracies in allowing unlimited political spending. Other advanced democracies have implemented successful controls:

Canada: Strict limits on both contributions and expenditures, with criminal sanctions for violations. Total election spending is capped at roughly $25 million for all parties combined.

United Kingdom: Campaigns are limited to spending roughly $30 million total across all parties. Corporate donations are banned, and individual contributions are capped.

Germany: Public financing covers most campaign costs, with strict limits on private contributions and spending.

Australia: All jurisdictions have much stricter controls than the U.S., with real-time disclosure requirements that make it difficult to hide funding sources.

These countries maintain competitive elections and robust democratic debate without allowing unlimited spending, undermining arguments that money restrictions necessarily harm free speech.

The Deficit Connection: How Money in Politics Drives Fiscal Irresponsibility

Here’s a connection that should alarm fiscal conservatives and progressives alike: there’s a direct correlation between the explosion of money in politics and runaway federal spending that’s driving our national debt crisis.

Consider the timeline: federal election spending increased 140-fold from 1976 to 2020, while federal debt exploded from $620 billion to $27 trillion—a 43-fold increase. This isn’t coincidence.

How big money drives big spending: When corporations and special interests can spend unlimited amounts on elections, they naturally invest in candidates who will deliver outsized returns through favorable policies. The result? A government that systematically favors concentrated interests over fiscal responsibility:

  • Defense contractors spend millions on campaigns and receive billions in unnecessary weapons programs
  • Agricultural interests invest in political influence and harvest billions in subsidies
  • Healthcare companies fund campaigns and secure policies that inflate medical costs
  • Financial institutions buy political access and obtain bailouts when their risks backfire

The math is simple: when a corporation can spend $10 million on political influence to secure $1 billion in government contracts or subsidies, that’s a 10,000% return on investment. Meanwhile, taxpayers—who can’t compete with that level of political spending—get stuck with the bill.

The accountability problem: Politicians no longer need to justify spending to voters when their real accountability is to major donors. Why cut wasteful programs when the beneficiaries are your biggest campaign funders? Why pursue fiscal discipline when deficit spending allows you to satisfy multiple special interests simultaneously?

This dynamic explains why our federal budget has become a Christmas tree of special interest giveaways rather than a reflection of genuine national priorities. Until we address the money problem, fiscal responsibility will remain elusive regardless of which party controls government.

Solutions: What We Can Actually Do About This

The good news? This problem is solvable, and there are concrete actions we can take at both the policy and individual level.

Policy-Level Solutions

Constitutional Amendment: The most comprehensive solution is a constitutional amendment clarifying that money is not speech and that reasonable limits on political spending are constitutional. This would require either:

  • Two-thirds of both houses of Congress + three-fourths of state legislatures, OR
  • Constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures

Current status: 22 states and over 800 cities have already passed resolutions supporting such an amendment.

Legislative Fixes (that could work even under current law):

  • Real-time disclosure requirements: Mandate that any political spending over $1,000 be disclosed within 24 hours, with severe penalties for violations
  • Strengthen coordination enforcement: Give the FEC real enforcement power and require 4-2 supermajority (instead of current 3-3 deadlock) for dismissing cases
  • Close dark money loopholes: Require any organization spending over $10,000 on politics to disclose donors who gave more than $200
  • Public financing systems: Provide matching funds for small donors to amplify the voice of ordinary citizens

State and Local Action: Many reforms can be implemented at state level:

  • Model legislation: States like Connecticut and Arizona have successfully implemented public financing systems
  • Disclosure requirements: States can require disclosure of political spending within their borders
  • Corporate governance: States can require shareholder approval for corporate political spending

Individual Citizen Action

Political engagement that actually works:

  1. Vote in primaries: Most Americans skip primaries, but these low-turnout elections are where money has the most influence. Your vote counts more in primaries than general elections.
  2. Support small-donor candidates: Look for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money and rely on small donors. Use platforms like ActBlue or WinRed to make small donations that get matched by public financing systems where available.
  3. Contact representatives strategically: Don’t just call—write detailed letters about specific bills, meet with staff during district work periods, and attend town halls. Politicians pay attention to constituents who demonstrate consistent engagement.
  4. Support transparency organizations: Donate to groups like OpenSecrets, Campaign Legal Center, and Common Cause that track money in politics and push for reforms.

Economic pressure that works:

  1. Shareholder activism: If you own stock (including through retirement accounts), vote your proxies and support shareholder resolutions requiring disclosure of corporate political spending.
  2. Consumer choices: Support companies that don’t engage in political spending or that disclose their political activities transparently.
  3. Divest from bad actors: Move your banking, investments, and purchases away from companies that are major players in dark money networks.

Civic infrastructure building:

  1. Join reform organizations: Groups like RepresentUs, Wolf PAC, and Move to Amend are building the grassroots infrastructure needed for systemic change.
  2. Local government engagement: Run for local office or support reform candidates. City councils and state legislatures are where you can have the most direct impact and build the foundation for larger reforms.
  3. Cross-partisan bridge building: This issue unites Americans across party lines. Build relationships with people who disagree with you on other issues but share concern about money in politics.

The Path Forward: Why This Moment Matters

We’re at an inflection point. The current system is unsustainable—both democratically and fiscally. Every year we delay action, the problem compounds as more wealth concentrates in fewer hands and their political influence grows exponentially.

But here’s what gives me hope: this isn’t a left-versus-right issue. It’s a top-versus-bottom issue. The vast majority of Americans—85% according to recent polling—believe the current system is broken. We have more agreement on this issue than on almost any other major policy question.

The technology analogy: In my work in technology, I’ve learned that the most intractable problems often have elegant solutions once you understand the underlying architecture. The money-in-politics problem feels overwhelming because we’re trying to fix symptoms instead of addressing the root cause.

The root cause is simple: we’ve built a system where wealth translates directly into political power. The solution is equally simple in concept: build democratic institutions that amplify the voice of citizens rather than concentrating power among the wealthy.

Your role in this transformation: Every major democratic reform in American history—from abolishing slavery to women’s suffrage to civil rights—required sustained citizen engagement. The same is true here. But unlike previous reform movements, we have tools our predecessors couldn’t imagine: real-time communication, data transparency, and the ability to organize across traditional geographic and partisan boundaries.

The call to action: Choose one specific action from the list above and commit to it this week. Whether it’s making a small donation to a transparency organization, contacting your representative about specific legislation, or simply talking to someone who disagrees with you politically about this shared concern—start somewhere.

The future of American democracy isn’t determined by Supreme Court justices or billionaire donors. It’s determined by whether enough citizens like you decide that our democratic institutions are worth fighting for.

But here’s the urgent reality we must confront: this problem isn’t static—it’s accelerating. Every election cycle brings more money, more influence, and more capture of our government by special interests. And this isn’t just about democracy anymore. The runaway special interest spending that unlimited political money enables has a direct, measurable impact on our federal deficit and national debt.

Big money drives big spending. When corporations and special interests can invest millions in political influence to secure billions in government contracts, subsidies, and favorable policies, the result is inevitable: wasteful spending, systemic corruption, and a federal budget that serves concentrated interests rather than national priorities. Our $34 trillion national debt isn’t just the result of policy disagreements—it’s the predictable outcome of a political system where those who benefit from deficit spending have unlimited resources to influence those who control the spending.

If we don’t address the money problem now, it will collapse both our economy and our government. The mathematics are unforgiving: unlimited political spending creates unlimited pressure for fiscal irresponsibility, and unlimited debt creates unlimited risk of economic catastrophe.

The question isn’t whether this system can be changed—it’s whether we’ll change it before it destroys the country we’re trying to save. What are you willing to do to help build that future?

Appendix: Citations and Sources

  1. Brennan Center for Justice. “Citizens United Explained.” Accessed 2025. The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.
  2. Brennan Center for Justice. “Fifteen Years Later, Citizens United Defined the 2024 Election.” Accessed 2025. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 decision that swept away more than a century’s worth of campaign finance safeguards, turns 15 this month.
  3. Campaign Legal Center. “How Does the Citizens United Decision Still Affect Us in 2025?” Accessed 2025. The Court concluded that unlimited corporate campaign spending would not lead to corruption because it assumed this spending would be fully transparent and “independent” from how campaigns choose to spend their money.
  4. OpenSecrets. “More money, less transparency: A decade under Citizens United.” Accessed 2025. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy acknowledged his decision was not followed by proper disclosure. The author of the Citizens United ruling said the modern-age disclosure system he championed is “not working the way it should.”
  5. Wikipedia. “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.” Updated 2025. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107–155, 116 Stat. 81, enacted March 27, 2002, H.R. 2356), commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or BCRA, is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.
  6. Ballotpedia. “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.” Accessed 2025. On April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that biennial aggregate contribution limits were unconstitutional… On May 16, 2022, the Supreme Court held that a federal law limiting the monetary amount of post-election contributions a candidate could use to pay back personal campaign loans impermissibly limited political speech.
  7. Britannica. “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA).” Updated 2017. The primary purpose of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) was to eliminate the increased use of so-called soft money to fund advertising by political parties on behalf of their candidates.
  8. Cornell Law. “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.” Accessed 2025. In 2002, Congress passed the BCRA, seeking to close the soft money loophole by putting an end to soft money contributions in federal elections.
  9. Wikipedia. “Campaign finance in the United States.” Updated 2025. For example, a candidate who won an election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990 spent on average $407,600 ($980,896 in 2024) while the winner in 2022 spent on average $2.79 million ($3.00 million in 2024); in the Senate, average spending for winning candidates went from $3.87 million ($9.31 million in 2024) to $26.53 million ($28.51 million in 2024). In 2020, nearly $14 billion was spent on federal election campaigns in the United States.
  10. OpenSecrets. “Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, Excluding Party Committees.” Accessed 2025. The 2010 election marks the rise of a new political committee, dubbed “super PACs,” and officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees,” which can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as wealthy individuals.
  11. Pew Research Center. “Power, corruption, money and influence of everyday people in American politics.” December 2024. Americans have long believed that major political donors and special interests have too much influence on politics and that ordinary people have too little influence.
  12. Bridgewater State University. “Money and Politics.” 2024. For example, the cost of the 2020 election for President and Congress totaled $14.4 billion, which was more than double what was spent on the 2016 election.
  13. University of Rochester. “Corporate money in politics threatens US democracy—or does it?” November 2021. The authors asked a representative sample of the American public before the 2016 election and then campaign finance experts in 2017 whether they agreed or disagreed with statements about campaign financing.
  14. Scholars Strategy Network. “How Money Corrupts American Politics.” June 2024. The quest for re-election money affects officials’ priorities and policy stands. From the moment they win office, candidates look ahead to the money they must raise for reelection.
  15. Pew Research Center. “How Americans view money in politics.” October 2023. Large shares of the public see political campaigns as too costly, elected officials as too responsive to donors and special interests, and members of Congress as unable or unwilling to separate their financial interests from their work as public servants.
  16. FEC. “Legal | Buckley v. Valeo.” Accessed 2025. The appellants had argued that the FECA’s limitations on the use of money for political purposes were in violation of First Amendment protections for free expression, since no significant political expression could be made without the expenditure of money.
  17. Wikipedia. “Buckley v. Valeo.” Updated 2025. In a per curiam (by the Court) opinion, they ruled that expenditure limits contravene the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because a restriction on spending for political communication necessarily reduces the quantity of expression.
  18. Britannica. “Buckley v. Valeo.” Updated 2014. The Supreme Court upheld the latter provision in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003) but struck it down in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010).
  19. First Amendment Encyclopedia. “Buckley v. Valeo (1976).” Updated 2025. In the landmark Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the Supreme Court found that statutory limits on campaign contributions were not violations of the First Amendment freedom of expression but that statutory limits on campaign spending were unconstitutional.
  20. The American Prospect. “How a Bad Interpretation of a 1976 SCOTUS Case Set the Stage for Citizens United.” June 2014. In Buckley, the Court upheld the limits on direct contributions to political campaigns but struck down the limits on expenditures by campaigns or supporters.
  21. CNBC. “Total 2020 election spending to hit nearly $14 billion, more than double 2016’s sum.” November 2020. The 2020 election is set to finish with $14 billion in spending, smashing records as Trump and Biden battle for the White House.
  22. OpenSecrets. “Most expensive ever: 2020 election cost $14.4 billion.” February 2021. Political spending in the 2020 election totaled $14.4 billion, more than doubling the total cost of the record-breaking 2016 cycle.